Within the main chamber, people were preparing for another night in the caves. Yet many stopped as she entered.
“How could she.” A woman scowled.
“Such a shame,” another whispered.
Most of them simply looked away as she passed.
What a huge reversal from only the night before. They probably thought Anna would stay since she’d spent the night with their Great One. If she was honest with herself, she had changed her mind. Her heart had, at least. Not that it really mattered anymore. They had to stop blaming all this on her. They needed to understand that sometimes things didn’t go the way you wanted them to.
“Are you hungry?” A little girl held up a wrapped bundle. “I just made these. They’re still warm.”
Anna accepted the gift. The aroma of spice and meat wafted from the folded towels. Her stomach grumbled, and she realized she hadn’t eaten today.
Her breath hitched. In all the commotion, had anyone thought to feed Puff?
She eyed the small stack of similar bundles at the girl’s feet. “Do you think the Great One would like something to eat?”
A smile burst across her face. “You can bring him these.” She grabbed five packages and held them to her.
“Wouldn’t you like to bring them to him yourself?”
She shook her head. “I think he’d rather you brought them, Ma’am.”
A woman placed her arm around the girl. “We’d be honored if you’d bring the Great One the fruits of our labors, Ms. Anna. It isn’t our way to seek appreciation.”
Anna’s eyes narrowed, but there seemed to be no malice in the woman’s tone. She and the little girl were excited to be a part of this, no matter what the outcome.
Warmed inside far more than the food could provide, she accepted the bundles before feeling her way through the dark corridor. After the fourth turn, a faint green illumination lit her way to the cathedral room.
Connor and Nik stood at the end of the hallway.
“How’s he doing?” Anna asked.
“He’s a stubborn little buck. He’ll be fine.” Connor glanced into the cave. “I wish I could say the same for the Draconi.”
Not him, too.
Anna squeezed the packages in her hands. “You are about the tenth person to say something like that to me, today, and it’s really starting to piss me off.” She ignored his widened eyes. “I get that the big dragon in charge is an ass, but if that’s the truth, stop complaining and do something about it.”
Connor cocked his head. “We were doing something about it. This is the Seventeen Year. We flew in hopes of…”
“That’s a bullshit excuse and you know it. If the dragons are willing to sit back and wait another seventeen years to get rid of this guy, then this is their own fault. Nothing is stopping them from overthrowing this asshole anytime they want.”
“You saw the size of Gale, and he is just one of many gray dragons. It would be a slaughter.”
“If your people actually believe that they don’t have a chance even if they work together, then they don’t really want to be free.”
Connor opened his mouth, but stopped himself, glancing a Nik.
Anna pushed past them. “Get out of my way.”
She tromped into the cathedral room and found Joe gripping a stalagmite, trying to stand.
“What are you doing?” She placed her bundles down and helped him back to a bed of pillows and rags spread out on the floor.
“I heard shouting.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I’m getting a little tired of…”
Her words trailed off when she caught his gaze. His eyes, Puff’s eyes, glistened with the blinking worm light. His silvery-white hair drifted around his face in easy waves, softening his sculpted features.
He was beautiful. How had she not seen that when they’d first met?
“Tired of what?” he asked.
She looked away. “Nothing. I’m sorry.” Shit, what kind of egomaniac was she? This wasn’t a game to these people. What she’d been talking about was revolution. Gale was the worst kind of dictator; and like Connor said, he was enormous. Would she be able to stand up to him if she were in their place?
She looked into the twinkling lights above, knowing the answer. It was easy to shout about doing the right thing when you weren’t the one with your life on the line.
Joe made room for her on the soft padding. “You look upset. Are you sure you’re all right?” He winced as he shifted to the side.
The rest of her anger faded, slipping away as if someone splashed her with a bucket of cold water. Joe was in pain, and he still worried about her more than himself. She was an ass. Worst of all, she didn’t deserve his kindness or concern.
Embarrassed, she looked away and grabbed one of the bundles. “They gave me food. Are you hungry?”
He smiled, lifting a weight from Anna’s mind. “Yes, actually I am.” He opened the cloth wrapping and looked inside. He seemed to hesitate.
Anna tensed, remembering how Nik had moved the carcass behind the boulder so she didn’t have to watch Puff eat a fresh kill. “Can you eat cooked food? Maybe I can get something else for you.”
He held up a hand. “It’s fine. I was actually enjoying the smell. We don’t have spices where I’m from.”
He motioned to the space beside him again. She eased onto the jumbled mess of cloth and pillows, sinking into their warmth. The worms twinkled above, constant company in the cave’s cool comfort.
It was odd, how at ease she felt beside Joe, when so much had gone wrong in her life since meeting him.
She’d been kidnapped and thrown in the middle of a dragon war against her will. She should hate him simply for being a dragon. At the bare minimum, she should be terrified of this ancient beast masquerading as a man. Yet she wasn’t. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so at ease. Was this sense of comfort all him, or was it the magical essence of the sparkling creatures covering the ceiling?
Maybe it was a bit of both.
Anna slipped a piece of the meat between her lips. The flavor exploded across her tongue in a tangy mix of lemon and cayenne. The taste was unexpected, like the hospitality of the little girl and her mother, Anna’s coziness with Joe, and the magnificence of this cave. “It’s really beautiful here.”
Joe nodded. “It makes me miss home.”
But could he go home empty handed? “What happens if no one finds a girl, to, you know…” Mate with. Jesus, it was like an entire race living in the Stone Age.
“Gale will remain king. That’s why I’m hoping he’ll allow me to return after the close of the Seventeen Year, since all he really wants is to rule.”
But even if he did allow Joe to return, Gale staying in power was bad for the dragons. This all sucked.
“Don’t look like that,” Joe said. “If I brought you back to Dragonmount, Gale would have challenged me for you anyway.” He glanced at the sparkling ceiling. “Even if I was in my dragon form, he still would have slaughtered me. I’m just too small.”
“You don’t know that.”
He looked at her, his expression stern and sure. “I do know that, and then he would have taken you from me, and killed you as well as soon as he had what he wanted.” He closed his eyes and looked away. “It is better for both of us this way.”
But this kind of thinking is what had kept the dragons under Gale’s sharp claws for all these years. None of it seemed fair.
But she’s seen what Gale had done to Connor with just one swipe of his talon. She didn’t blame the rest of them for being terrified.
“I’m not upset I found you, though.” Joe smiled. “I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent together.”
“You mean the last five minutes sitting here?”
“No, the time we spent together when I was a dragon.” He smiled. “I liked the wonder in your eyes when you looked at me, and the sound of your heartbeat when you nuzzled under my wing, and that adorable noise you make when you slee
p.”
“The noise I make?”
He mimicked a snorting and gurgling sound.
“I do not sound like that.”
“You do.” He ran his hand along her cheek His fingers were soft, as if he’d never labored with his hands. “It’s a wonderful sound. You shouldn’t be ashamed of anything that makes you, you.”
She never considered snoring anything that made her, her. It warmed Anna, though, knowing that he thought something so embarrassing was cute.
They ate for some time in silence; the twinkling worms the only distraction in the dimly lit cavern. Anna tried to soak it all in, because tomorrow morning she’d be driving down the mountain and back to civilization. Odd, how something that had started with the terror of being snatched off the street by a dragon, was ending with such peace, quiet, and contentment.
Joe turned away from the blinking ceiling. “Do you think it would have worked between us if we’d met under different circumstances?”
Wow, that was a loaded question. Back at the bar that night, she’d barely given Joe a second look. Now she was keenly aware of his closeness, his strength, his sincerity. Had she been so blinded by her sister’s agenda that she’d sheltered herself from something that could have been great?
If Gale hadn’t walked in after the glasses fell from the ceiling, would Anna have sat with Joe and had a drink? And what if she had?
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “If we’d had more time to get to know each other before all this…” She might have noticed the dimple in his cheek when he smiled, or how the same adorable mark disappeared when he was sad, like now.
But who was she kidding? She might have shared a drink to be nice after he’d saved her from the falling fixture, but then she’d have gotten out of that bar as soon as possible. She hadn’t been looking for a man. She still wasn’t.
Anna’s stomach clenched. It was the truth that she hadn’t been looking for someone. However, she’d found a guy who’d saved her life more than once in the few days they’d known each other. He’d trapped himself in human form while there was a giant dragon out there, gunning for him, and his only reward was knowing that Anna would live another day.
She forced her gaze away from him, from the ceiling, and from the package on her lap. She closed her eyes and centered her thoughts on the car, on getting down the mountain and back to her life. But the notion no longer held the strength to keep her turned away. She looked back at Joe, and the knot in her stomach unraveled.
Home meant sitting in a college classroom, taking required courses neither she, not her professors cared about. Home was traffic and lines and alarm clocks. Why in God’s name did she want to go back to that when she could be here, with him.
Joe wove his fingers through hers. “I guess kidnapping isn’t the greatest way to start a relationship.”
Unless the guy you start the relationship with is the one who saved you from that kidnapping. She looked from their clasped hands to his face. Yes, this sweet, unassuming guy had saved her life, and she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again, even though she was about to walk out of his life forever.
Anna pulled her hand from his. “I wish we’d met on a regular day. I wish we’d had time to talk and get to know each other.” No dragons, no evil dictators, no Seventeen Year.
Joe closed his eyes and lowered his head. “I wish that, too.”
Because he was already emotionally invested. Connor had explained to her that once Joe had chosen her, she became part of him. She was his in a way far deeper than exchanging rings and making a few vows neither expected to keep.
“This bond-thing, will it go away?”
He shrugged, chewing a bite of meat before taking a deep breath. “I will always know where you are. If you stay in America, my heart will always look northeast.” He turned to her. “But know that when you are lonely, I will know, and wish I could be there for you. If you are sad, I’ll wish my arms were longer so I could hold you.” He looked down again. “You’ll be in my thoughts forever.”
Anna swallowed the ball building in her throat and wiped the dampness from her eyes.
“I didn’t say that to make you cry. I’m sorry.”
“No. That’s not why I’m crying.” But why was she crying? Was she happy to be going home, or dreading the loss of what she’d be leaving behind?
He tossed the remainder of his meal to the side and held out his arm. “Would it be too much to ask you to spend one more night with me? I’m sorry, but I won’t have wings to keep you warm this time.”
She laughed. “I guess we’ll have to manage.”
He leaned back on the pillows, and she placed her head on his shoulder and settled beside him. Above, the glow worms danced for them, a final bit of magic before returning to the safety of reality.
Anna slipped her arm around Joe’s chest and clung to him, hoping he didn’t notice that her tears had begun to dampen his shirt.
*.*.*
Blinking in the greenish glow, Anna shifted off Joe slowly so as not to wake him, and felt her way along the dark hallway until the she saw the soft yellow glow of the main chamber. She eyed the drop cloths hanging on the far side of the room and shivered, considering the buckets they concealed. She hadn’t thought anyone could come up with something worse than a port-o-potty until now. But she still had to relieve nature’s call.
She tiptoed past sleeping children on the rocky floor, cringing as the scent of bleach and smells that couldn’t be covered strengthened. There had to be a better way. She held her breath, lifting the lid off one of the buckets.
Someone clicked on a flashlight, and she jumped, dropping the lid.
Tyler smiled at her and whispered, “I’ve never been able to do my business on a bucket.”
Anna smiled, backing away from the stench. “I was hoping to avoid it, myself.”
“Me, too.” He motioned to the entrance. “It’s dawn already. I was heading outside if you’d like to find a nice, solitary bush.”
Anna never thought she’d hear herself say this, but, “A bush sounds lovely.”
They carefully shifted a few of the stones covering the human entrance and Anna followed him into the narrow crevice.
Half way through the makeshift hall, Tyler stopped and looked back at her. “You spent the night with the Great One again?”
Sandwiched between two stone walls, his eyes blazed in the low light. He tilted his head, as if demanding a response to the question he obviously knew the answer to. “Umm, yeah.”
“Have you changed your mind about returning with him to Dragonmount, then?”
The word yes hung on the edge of her lips. The enormity of those three letters sent a flash of perspiration across her skin.
What was she thinking? She had a life at home. College. A dog who loved her to pieces. No. She couldn’t even consider this. It was crazy.
She closed her eyes and released a breath. It didn’t matter, anyway. Joe was hurt. It would be long after their deadline before he returned to that mountain, and by then, Anna would be half way home. They’d both made their peace with that. Like Joe said, it was safer for both of them this way.
She met Tyler’s gaze and tried to stand taller. “I’m going home as soon as it’s safe to get down the mountain. Nothing has changed. I’m sorry.”
He pressed his lips together, staring for a moment before he turned back toward the exit. “I’m sorry, too.”
Tyler’s flashlight cast a narrow beam into the darkness when they left the cave. A chill blew on the breeze, startling her. If it was dawn, why was it so dark?
Tyler stopped walking and turned back to her, lowering his flashlight beam.
“What’s wrong?” Anna asked.
Something moved behind her, and Anna turned as a torch blazed to life. A man with long hair and a dark jacket stood between her and the opening of the cave. A wicked smile crossed his lips.
Oh, shit.
Anna turned to run, smacking right into a second man wh
o wrenched her arms behind her back.
“Don’t struggle and I won’t have to hurt you,” he growled into her ear.
She remembered that voice from the bar, right before Gale had dragged her outside. Cain. These men were dragons.
Anna continued to twist, and Cain’s grip tightened. Her arms throbbed under the pressure.
Tyler’s pained gaze met hers. None of the dragons tried to restrain him, or even gave him any notice.
A deep dread centered in her chest when she realized there was no sign of sunrise. He’d lied.
“Why?” she whispered.
The flashlight dangled loosely from his fingers. He turned from her and looked into the darkness. “I’ve done what you asked. Where’s my daughter?”
“Relax, human,” Cain said. “Your king keeps his promises.”
Another dragon stepped out of the darkness and shoved a blonde girl at Tyler.
Elaina. Holy God!
The girl stumbled into the veterinarian’s arms. She clung to him, crying.
Tyler mouthed the words “I’m sorry” to Anna. Her legs weakened. She wanted to tell him it was okay, but it wasn’t.
Bile rose in Anna’s throat as Cain sniffed her hair. “You do smell delicious. I understand our king’s interest.”
The Earth trembled as an immense weight dropped behind them. Cain spun them, and she winced as she faced the glowing yellow eyes of a huge, gray dragon.
22
Anna!
Nik bolted upright. The blanket covering his shoulders slipped to the stone floor. Around the chamber, many Maori stirred, some rubbing their eyes.
Anna!
A thunderbolt of pain ricocheted through Nik’s shoulder and side. He cried out.
Anna!
Was he still dreaming? Why was that girl’s name repeating in his head?
“Great One, what’s wrong?” Nanna stumbled from her blankets toward the back of the room.
Nik brought himself to full height as Joe stumbled into the chamber, holding his side. “They took her.”
“Who took who?” Nanna asked.
Nik didn’t need to listen for the answer. The deep ache sinking in his chest was not his own pain, but phantom terror filtering through the Kotahi bond. Even in human form, Nik and his dragon were still connected, and there was only one person whose loss could have affected Joe this much.
Sirens and Scales Page 371
